Women, feminism, and geek culture

So tired of this trope.

Hey Taylor, I’mma let you finish, but I just wanted to say that that shit with taking your glasses off and omg you were beautiful all along is fucking tedious. (Incident occurs at 3:04 in the following video.)

Not being a 13 year old girl, I never would’ve watched this at all if not for the Kanye ruckus (though my 13 year old self would have been watching it intently and taking self-hating notes). Must say, I prefer Beyonce’s video qua music video; my geek librarian ex-roomie Erica sat me down last year and made me watch the Fosse choreography that Beyonce’s video is referencing, and it’s awesome. Anyone else here a dance/choreography geek?

Also, something else that occurred to me later, is that as much as I’m sick of the trope, I *am* kind of glad that for once the girl was recognizing her own pretty, as opposed to the guy or a friend or whatever pulling her glasses off and *telling* her she’s pretty. The rest of the song and video kinda piss me off for other reasons, but I hate this version of the trope less than I might.

The other thing too is that they have to be big, OMG, glasses. Not like they make lots of stylish glasses that anyone would want to wear, especially when you’re going to take them off to show the ‘pretty.’

Ironically, the really fashionable girls in Stockholm are all ga-ga for big “nerd” glasses. They’re getting them even if they don’t have vision problems! So by 2009 standards, the nerd version of Taylor is hotter than her made-up prom version. I actually like this trend of “nerdy is attractive”, since the implication is that “brainy is sexy”.